This past Wednesday I received the finished version of my band’s fourth demo, the self-titled Floating Block Technology. My guitarist Travis finished recording the vocals and mixing the tracks just this past week, and I now have several copies sitting in my room. This demo was essentially started in 2005 when we recorded a version of the first track “Inpatient”, just after the completion of our third demo Normal. It wasn’t until summer 2007 though that we set out writing new material for Floating Block Technology. The majority of those five tracks were recorded that summer, but with new careers and moving away from each other, it took two more years to complete the songs and the vocals.
I am proud to hold the final version in my hands. The songs are posted on the Music page and can be downloaded from there. As a band we would love to hear from you, so please email us your thoughts at FloatingBlockTechnology@gmail.com.
In June, back at the Fulbright Pre-departure Orientation in Washington, D.C. which I helped facilitate at, I was interviewed by Fulbright staff for a series of videos they were producing about the Fulbright experience. They told me they’d let me know when it was up, but it actually got posted over three weeks ago! Check it out:
My graduate studies have begun this week at Georgia Tech. I have received my desk in the transportation lab, spoken with my advisor about possible research topics, and begun classes. This semester I am taking the following courses, the first four of which are required for my curriculum. They are listed below along with the instructors’ names.
CEE 6601 - Statistics in Transport (Dr. Laurie Garrow)
CEE 6602 - Urban Transportation Planning (Dr. Randall Guensler & Dr. Catherine Ross)
CEE 6603 - Traffic Engineering (Dr. Michael Hunter)
CEE 8811-C - Masters Transportation Seminar (Dr. Laurie Garrow)
CEE 4803-A - Freight Transportation Systems & Airport Planning (Dr. Michael Meyer & Dr. Frank Southworth)
My advisor is Dr. Michael Meyer and with him I will be researching how transportation plays a role in megaregion growth, but the specific topic will be nailed down later. Currently I am reading through Dr. Catherine Ross’s new textbook Megaregions: Planning for Global Competitiveness to get a better handle on the topic.
Also this semester I will be applying to the City and Regional Planning department to become a dual degree candidate. I would then begin my coursework in that department next semester.
Today was my final day working at the Institute for Transportation Research and Education. I started the summer working on a project that looked at new pavement marking retroreflective technology. We looked at the effect of these in nighttime rainy conditions. The beginning of the summer had some potential rainy nights that had me driving to our test sites at 8pm, but as the summer continued, the rain decreased.
To supplement my time on this project, I came on board a project examining access management techniques across North Carolina, and how they affected businesses. We specifically looked at median constructions, when a 5-lane road with a two-way left turn lane was removed and a 4-lane road with a median was constructed. An eleven question survey was designed for businesses to give their opinions about the median and respond with how the median affected customer flow. We visited sites in Wilmington, Raleigh, Salisbury, and Charlotte. Each had unique characteristics, including one in Charlotte which had a light rail line as part of its median. We had an excellent response rate, over 70% for most sites, and we attributed it to our study’s face-to-face interviews. Previous studies in other states achieved less than 20% but had only mailed out surveys.
Both of these projects are still ongoing, and it is difficult to leave them when they are both still near the beginning. Tomorrow though, I leave for Atlanta to begin graduate school at Georgia Tech.
Last Friday I finally wrapped up the data processing for my Fulbright research. The hundreds of hours I put in riding buses in Dhaka, Bangladesh did not end my project there. Processing the data by entering it into my main spreadsheet and database was the next step before I start my analysis. Having this step complete is a big milestone.
The overcrowded bus data has taken a long time to move through. The first step required me to listen to the recordings I had of what occurred at the hundreds of bus stops (I had over 1400 left to process upon returning to the United States). On this listen I recorded on a piece of paper the boardings, alights, and bus movements that occurred. A second relisten allowed me to time each bus stop and get the time points of each board and alight. I then entered this time data into my spreadsheet. Once a full route’s of bus stops were recorded in this fashion, I could enter the route’s information, including how crowded the bus got and how far it stopped from the curb, into my database.
Below is a typical scene of a bus boarding. Shown here is the #6 Motijheel-Banani bus at its northbound Shat Rasta stop in the south end of Tejgaon, Dhaka.
Last Wednesday through Friday, I attended the Fulbright Pre-departure Orientation for U.S. Scholars and Students Going to South and Central Asia. Held in Washington, D.C., the orientation is the first chance new Fulbrights have to meet others going to their country, meet the staff from the U.S. Department of State and the Institute for International Education, and get questions answered regarding their award.
As a returning student, I hosted the Bangladesh country session for the nine new Fulbright Students and five new Fulbright Scholars. Facilitating along with me was Geoffrey Hiller, a Fulbright Scholar from 2008-2009, who lectured at the Independent University of Bangladesh on interactive media. For the session, I produced a 16-page briefing on topics new Fulbrights to Bangladesh might find useful. You can view that document here and it is also posted in the Writings section. Below is a photo of our session room with some of the new Fulbrights to Bangladesh. I really enjoyed meeting them and getting to share stories and advice about life in Dhaka.
On Monday June 15, I participated as a panelist in a webinar for potential Fulbright applicants. This particular webinar was for applicants to South and Central Asia, and I was joined by another Fulbright alumnus, Scott Sorrell who did his Fulbright in Nepal last year, and a another Fulbright student who had just received a Fulbright to go to India next year. The format was a roundtable discussion of our experiences applying and researching abroad.
I was invited to participate by the Institute of International Education who manages the Fulbright for students. The webinar was watched by over sixty potential Fulbright applicants. In the webinar, just over an hour long, each us alumni gave a ten minute talk on our time in our respective countries and what our experiences were with the application process. As we talked, a slideshow of photographs from our time in our respective countries ran for the viewers to see. After, a question and answer period moderated by Tony Claudino of IIE was ran. The viewers messaged in their questions to Mr. Claudino, who then read them aloud for the alumni panelists to respond to.
The next webinar of this type, which I might be a panelist for, is Monday August 3.
I received notice this past week from the National Science Foundation that I earned an Honorable Mention in this year’s Graduate Research Fellowship competition. This was the final item I was waiting to hear back on from my round of applications this year.
It was not until after the regatta that I was alerted by one of the current NC State coxswains that my likeness was on the SIRA Champioship Regatta’s t-shirt. He scanned the shirt he had purchased there and sent me the image, and sure enough, the single sculler on the bottom was me! Knowing roughly where that photo would be from, I scoured the photos I have on my laptop and found the original picture they used: a picture of me racing in the Men’s Senior B Lightweight Single Heats at the 2006 Canadian Henley in St. Catharine’s, Ontario. This is from the summer when I was a member of Undine Barge Club in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
I have been trying to get in contact with Bob Jaugstetter, the regatta director of the SIRA Championship and head coach of Tulane Rowing, but have had no success so far.
The t-shirt scan and the likely original photo are below:
The final study report from my internship over the winter at the Regional Plan Association has been posted in the Writings section. Entitled Assessing Increased Rail Speeds in the Northeast Corridor, it summarizes the issues facing the Northeast Megaregion’s rail backbone, and what could be done to improve it.
